For farmers, fall usually means harvest season. It’s the time we work all year for, when we literally see the fruits of our labor. But boy do you have to work to take in the harvest!

Prior to this year, harvest season for us meant harvesting cash crops like corn and soybeans. It’s a battle against time and weather. It has to be just the right time to harvest the crops, not too early or they’re not quite ready, and not too late or the rain and/or snow becomes an issue. Then there’s the fight against daylight as it starts getting darker earlier.

Harvest season is full of long hours, long days and long nights. This year is a transition year for us. We converted a big chunk of the farm into pasture this year, so we’re farming less cash crops this year. Our goal is eventually to convert all our cash crop ground into our pasture farming ecosystem, but for now we’re doing both.

This fall is actually harvest season for our beef as well. The steers had been growing and feasting on grass. We’d been watching them closely all spring and summer, with the goal of a fall harvest. We dropped the steers off at the butcher a couple weeks ago and just picked up the beef this week.

I shouldn’t be surprised that we’re doing everything at once - harvesting crops and harvesting beef at the same time. That seems to be how things go. Farming is juggling a lot of balls in the air at once. And when you’re farming in the style we’re starting to, where we are doing lots of different things, there is ALWAYS something happening or something to do.

We’re beyond thrilled to have our first beef harvest and excited for our first group of customers to receive their orders. We truly believe in our model of using practices that are beneficial for nature, the animals and the environment. When we delivered the steers to the butcher, we did so confident that had been well-cared for and provided a healthy, clean, and natural environment to grow in.

As with all things farming, the minute we harvest, we start to plan for the next season. We’re already gearing up for our beef orders for 2021, as well as exploring some new product offerings that we’ll hopefully be announcing soon!